Block-access data accounts for up to twenty per cent of ROBO data according to Nasuni, hence the new appliance generation. Nasuni reckons it's the only cloud storage gateway or appliance supplier providing unified storage. This removes the need for any other storage in ROBO sites, simplifying their IT infrastructure.

Data written to the appliance is automatically uploaded to the cloud using replication, providing data backup and off-site storage. Anything uploaded from one ROBO site quickly becomes available to all the other ROBOs in the organisation's network through sync'ing. Nasuni also says that data written to its appliance is protected by backup and offsite storage, secured with encryption, and managed centrally from one location, obviating the need for storage management in the ROBO sites. The off-site facility also means that disaster recovery is provided.

To enable this extra functionality Nasuni has beefed up its appliance hardware and is adding better support arrangements as well. The first-generation appliance had 1U enclosure wrapped around one processor, 16GB of DRAM, four 7.2K disk drives, 3 to 6TB of local storage cache, and support for up to 300 users.

The second-gen box is 2U in height and has two processors inside it, 32GB of RAM, 26 10K disk drives, 6 to 12TB of local cache and supports three times as many users as the first gen box. It also has two 10Gb Ethernet ports instead of its predecessor's pair of 1Gb ports.

Support is automatic, with Nasuni accessing the appliance remotely at times the customer agrees, and antivirus software in integrated and handled by Nasuni. We have local ROBO storage and cloud gateway appliances covering file and block access, and remote ROBOadmin and Nasuni support looking after the appliances from afar. Nasuni hopes it's got a winning box and service here and customers will use its ROBO storage on-ramp to the cloud. ®